[cma-l] Service Level Agreements in Community Radio

[Carol Francis]

Hi

Hope this helps.

SLAs are not stand alone documents - they form part of a service 
contract (service specification), and as such should not be delivered on 
their own to an outside supplier.  A service spec will be the terms of 
delivery, costs etc but will be in addition to standard T's & C's of 
contracts.

Carol

-----Original Message-----
From: Murray Dawson
Sent: 27 August 2008 11:28

Subject: Re: [cma-l] Service Level Agreements in Community Radio

An appropriate time for this discussion for us at SHMU.

We've developed SLA's with our local authority, NHS Grampian, the 
Scottish Govt. and generally they are developed together.
We value them, as they clearly set out the expectations of both parties 
in terms of the agreed work, and also identify measures of both outputs 
and outcomes.

The danger is when an SLA is imposed - a situation we've just found 
ourselves in.

Over the last three months I've been working with an Officer in the 
Council on the SLA to support the core costs of our organisation (which 
in reality will be around 15% of our total income).

Having invested a significant amount of time throwing the document back 
and forward, we finally agreed to the terms.

The Council then decided to send it to their solicitors in Edinburgh, 
which I received a copy of yesterday.

The document bears no resemblance to the draft that was sent to them, 
and includes a series of a ridiculous clauses, including one that would 
allow the Council to evict us from the building with 2 days notice for 
'being a nuisance'.

We're obviously not signing it, and are seeking legal advice.

I would suggest that all organisations seek legal advice (preferable 
pro-bono).  As I said, I value SLA's, but they are legal documents and 
you need to be happy with the content.

I'm happy to post previous versions of SLA's if that would be useful.

All the best,

Murray

please reply to murray at shmu.org.uk

Murray Dawson
Project Director
Station House Media Unit
Station Road, Woodside,
Aberdeen  AB24 2WB
Tel - 01224 515013	

http://www.shmu.org.uk

Listen to our community radio station live on 99.8FM and at 
http://www.shmufm.net

SHMU is a charity registered in Scotland - SC034211 and a registered 
Limited Company - SC332413